Monday, July 04, 2005

Ever since I traded in my lawyer's robes for a pastor's cassock...actually I was being metaphorical: they phased the robes out towards the end of my time...I was saying, ever since that time, I have know God's provision in a miraculous way. For example, last year we received an anonymous bank cheque for $500 right before my car got stolen - it covered the excess for us. God finds a way to demonstrate his great love and faithfulness to us.So this week some cool things happened. First, our friend Jean asked us over for dinner. Actually, it all started with Jean drawing me aside all serious to tell me something - I'm thinking "oh no, something's wrong!" Turns out she just wanted to say thanks for the way she had found a home as part of the cessioncommunity. So she invites us over to dinner on Saturday night for this awesome feast...I can't even begin to describe the variety and flavour! Through Jean's offering of friendship I also experienced God's care and encouragement.Then there's Amie, new to the community - she self-describes herself as flirting with or dating God. She's come to our cell group twice now. On Thursday she offers her cleaning, babysitting and cooking services for the next 2 weeks to anyone we know who could do with some help, making it clear that she considers us at the head of the queue. "In that you did it for the least of these you did it for me." I experience God's care and encouragement again.And then came Saturday morning. In a fit of optimism and delayed responsibility I think to check the bank account online to ensure we have money for the week ahead! I sign on in the usual way...only to note something very odd with one of our accounts. It has a balance way more than it should. So I access the statement to locate the anomoly. Then I see the words:

ACT OF GOD

Alongside the words a deposit of some significance. Now thats a pretty bizarre thing to see in your bank account. My first thought is: how did God get the account number?! I make some minimal effort to unravel the mystery, not because I need to know but because I'm still hoping that we can beat the rap on the large hospital bill that we are facing. I guess I'll just feel bad if we can't give the money back. So it sounds as if there are a bunch of people who have banded together on this one and then had the treasurer deposit the money with his usual sense of humour! Talking with one of our friends last night, who was doing a bad job of pretending she knew nothing about it, I began to accept that if people had responded to a prompting from God to make this gift then we would be directly rejecting God's provision if we somehow tried to give it back. Just some nasty pride and independence within me.

It seemed fitting then that Melissa close off our Community focused Out of the Closet series with "Waking the Dead" - drawing on Ephesians 5:1-14. She talked about the fragrance of lives lived out of resurrection. She called us to live that out personally and corporately. And I guess we experienced something of that perfume this week.